It is commonly considered that knowledge is power. The argument goes something like this. The more you know the more you are able to control and predict events. The more you are able to control events the more power you must have. Now I will not disagree completely with this line of thought. It is obvious that knowledge does give you some power. However I am going to argue that there is another skill that can give you even more power than knowledge, and that is the power to persuade.
In the film Training day we find that famous quote, that’s its not “what you know, it’s what you can prove.” The reason why knowledge alone is not enough is because we are social beings. It was argued all the way back in Ancient Greece by Socrates that power is increased in number, that even the strongest man, can not defeat fifty average ones. This view can also been seen in Marx's call for solidarity. Now if we accept that man is stronger in a group than on his own, individual knowledge is not enough. You need the skill in order to persuade and convince others of your knowledge. Let me give you an example, a scientist discovers a way to cure pancreatic cancer. He discovers the cure on his own in the laboratory. The next day he is struck dumb and blind. He has no way to convince anyone else that he discovered that cure. He has the knowledge still, however it is useless. This example should show you that the power comes not from knowledge itself but from being able to show and convince others of this knowledge.
Now ever since Plato the act of persuasion has had a bad reputation. It has been seen as something sinister. However persuasion is basically communication. We often judge things for the way they are able to communicate things to us. Another example may be this. A woman discovers a code that can tell us the origin of the Universe. Now this code is so complex that only she can understand it. She has no previous reputation in the scientific world, and can only be judged by this code. If nobody else can understand it, then it has failed. She will not be taken seriously and thus her power will be diminished.
We need not see rhetoric as something scary. It is not a form of magic. Even the most trained sophist cannot convince you of just anything. Persuasion relies on plausibility. The greatest way to gain this plausibility is through using tools that people can understand. The most used tools are things such as logic and empirical data. If an idea does not have support from these tools then it will lack plausibility and will thus not be able to convince.
So my argument is thus. Real power rests in the ability to convince others of what you know. It’s about what you can prove. Prove up to the level that others are satisfied. This is because with persuasion, you are able to convey knowledge on a practical level. In fact, only knowledge that can be socially proven do we consider knowledge. Thus if we are to consider knowledge to be power, we must have the ability to persuade others of our knowledge. Thus persuasion must give us more power. Thus real power lies in persuading others that you have knowledge, not simply in the knowledge itself.
Lloyd Duddridge
